This blog's title is based upon the best question I ever overheard being asked, by a young Liverpudlian child to his mother, as in "What's..?".
The answer seems to be something of a creative and cultural nature which, in deed (primarily the making of art) and word, this blog intends to explore...

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Badge of the Day #65 (Spartak Hradec Králové)

Another recent acquisition for the (mostly) European club
collection, representing the name of DSO Spartak Hradec Králové, of the former
Czechoslovakia, who existed as such between 1953 – 76 (now, through the course
of numerous rebrandings, being known more prosaically as FC Hradec Králové), achieving
a championship & subsequent appearance in the early years of the European
Cup during that period.

The badge is another of those lovely, irresistibly redolent vintage objects,
hauntologically rich - being the manifestation of a ghost - & inspiring
the familiar 'Ostalgie', featuring the ever-exotically Eastern European socialist
sports society name & legend ‘Spartak’ upon & most harmoniously
contained within the cog-like design of the club crest (as is the iconic Soviet red star, of course) which, to someone
saturated in the particular aesthetic during the post-punk times, is
reminiscent of those (East) European Modernist, Futurist-Constructivist-inspired,
machine-age designs appropriated/produced by Peter Savile during the early
years of Factory Records’ redefining of the landscape of music-related graphic
design, perfectly suited to the ‘industrial’ (yet in the very process of
becoming post-industrial) Manchester milieu in which they operated. One is
reminded, particularly, of the ‘anvil’ logo that had its very own Factory
catalogue number – FAC 47 - & appeared imprinted upon both the reverse of
the sleeve & the disc labels of the 12” release of New Order’s ‘Everything’s
Gone Green’/’Mesh’/'Cries and Whispers’ amongst others, a pleasing conjunction
of art, football & music, those enduring passions & staples of TOoT’s
content.